


A Night Together

by Scriberat



Category: Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic
Genre: Fluff, M/M, sharing the bed trope
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-20
Updated: 2018-01-20
Packaged: 2019-03-07 03:52:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13426221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scriberat/pseuds/Scriberat
Summary: Koumei gets a day off a month. Usually, his day off entails him being holed up in the library both before and after feeding his pigeons. This time, it gets a little... wonky. Yunan shows up, and his presence is enough to throw Koumei's schedule off any time of day, or night.





	A Night Together

Koumei looked around the library quietly, gliding down one aisle after another like a wraith, silent in his perusing of shelves and life. After ascertaining that no one else was here at this late hour, he took a book about a fantastic legend that his older brother had crossed referenced to hell and back off the shelf. He set it on a table in a dusty corner. Then he sat down and propped his feet up.

 

It was the first hour of his day off, when he had no duties to attend to. That meant no war meetings, no court to see to, no women in his bed. For the rest of this night, the following day, and half the night after, Koumei’s time was his.

 

“What’s that you’re reading?” Yunan asked. Koumei shrieked and fell out of his chair.

 

“What are you doing here? And keep your voice down. If anyone knows I’m here, they won’t leave me alone,” Koumei said, standing up and putting a hand over Yunan’s mouth. It was weird. As soon as one servant saw him, at least two would, without fail, come by and ask him if he needed anything. This was going to go off without a hitch. No one was going to disturb him… mostly.

 

“Ah, sorry. I came to see you. I had a feeling you’d be up at this time,” Yunan said. He sat down in the chair next to Koumei’s, as the prince resumed his own seat.

 

“It’s my day off, so I’m enjoying a nice book.”

 

“I see. A legend?”

 

“Yeah, it is. This is the story of the Jade Emperor, and how he became the Ruler of the Heavens. His mother and father were King and Queen over a great kingdom, but they had no heir, so they prayed to Taoist deities to be able to have one. They were granted one, the Jade Emperor, and he was a selfless and kind person, always giving what he had to his people so they could live well.”

 

“And this led to him becoming a King in the Heavens?” Yunan asked.

 

“Sort of. He ascended the throne when the King died, and saw that everyone was suffering because of reincarnation. Because of that, he sought a way to end this cycle, and went to the mountains to study the Way.”

 

“The Way?”

 

“Tao, the Way of the universe, how everything flows and works together. We can’t understand it ourselves, but the Jade Emperor became truly Tao. According to the book, he spent more than three thousand _kalpas_ studying, and a hundred million more as Leader of the Heavens.”

 

“ _Kalpa?”_

 

“A measurement of time. One _kalpa_ is the span of a universe’s creation to its rebirth, more than any human will know. That is why we’ll never truly know Tao,” Koumei said, staring off into the distance, as if pondering Tao. Yunan watched him, marveling at the glassy look in his eye, and the depth that was shining through.

 

“But you seek to understand it, regardless?”

 

“Somewhat. I understand Taoist ways, and I admire them greatly. They’ve influenced my systems of government, but to attain such a great understanding of the universe would take a lifetime of observation and study.”

 

“Can you tell me more about Taoism? It sounds very interesting, and it’s obviously important to you,” Yunan said, setting his hat on the table.

 

“Certainly.” Koumei spent the next hour or so talking about Taoism, how it was a part of a person, how their Way was different from anyone else’s.

 

“From anyone else… that makes sense. Having lived as long as I have, I’ve noticed that the Rukh flow differently in everyone. Their magoi all have subtle fluctuations that make them unique. It’s the same principle, right?”

 

“That’s right,” Koumei said. He yawned. “We also learn from others constantly.”

 

“You need to go to bed,” Yunan said. As interesting as it was, listening to Koumei’s voice, and learning about this strange philosophy religion thing that he knew so much about --- and yet nothing, at the same time, as he had one perspective --- Yunan knew that sleep was still important. He felt tired, himself. It took real energy to fast travel from one place to another.

 

As much as he hated to admit it, he was getting old, too.

 

“I know,” Koumei said, yawning again. “Besides, I think I covered most of the basics. The rest is really finding your own path.” He stood, looked at the book he had been reading, then sighed. So he hadn’t been able to read, after all. Yunan grabbed the scroll from the table as Koumei walked out of the library.

 

The two of them walked down the halls silently, turning this way and that, with no apparent destination in mind. Of course, even watching Koumei for as short a time as he had, Yunan could tell that there was a method to their wandering, even if he knew Koumei’s room was closer than this walk’s length. It was a curious route.

 

At one point, Koumei grabbed Yunan’s shoulder, and spun him into a corner, pressing against his body fully.

 

“K-Kou---” Yunan stuttered, before Koumei once again put his hand over the Magi’s mouth. They waited for a bit, as the sound of hurried footsteps passed by them. Once the sound was gone, Koumei fell away from Yunan’s body, and continued walking. They went only a little further before reaching Koumei’s room. He went inside, Yunan following closely behind.

 

“Will you be spending the night? I can have a guest room prepared, if you’d like,” Koumei said, raising an eyebrow.

 

“I’d rather stay here, with you.”

 

“With me?” That caught him off-guard.

 

“Yes. I wanted to spend more time with you.” Maybe Yunan had been… too presumptuous? Had he remembered to be courteous? He didn’t think so.

 

_Well done, Yunan. You’ve probably scared him._

 

“… Alright.” Koumei turned hurriedly toward the bed, pulling his magenta robe off, its color not helping at all to hide the pink of the Rukh that surrounded him. _Ah, so he took it as a brash invitation, of a sort._

 

“You’re really okay with me staying? For a moment, I thought I had been too thoughtless in my words,” Yunan said.

 

“Make no mistake, you were thoughtless. But… I enjoy it. Everyone in the palace tries to honey words and hide meaning. It takes an adept mind to read them. With you, I don’t have to bother. You say what you want to, most of the time, and the things you don’t say are easy to understand.” Koumei pulled his clothes off, letting them fall to the floor, before picking up a fresh robe that had been laid out on the bed. Yunan stripped to his skivvies, then climbed into the bed after the Prince.

 

“Weren’t you wearing a hat before?” Koumei asked, pulling his hair ribbon out.

 

“Yes, I… oh. It’s still in the library.”

 

“That could present a problem. If it’s found, questions will be raised. It’s distinctive, too.”

 

“True. I’ll go back and get it now,” Yunan said, leaving the bed.

 

“Your clothes,” Koumei called.

 

“Don’t worry about a thing.” Yunan smiled, then left the room, floating to the ceiling. He drifted along to the library, sensing out the particular Rukh of processed plant matter.

 

Inside the library, he found his hat being held by Judar. The boy was sitting on the table, smirking, hat on his raised knee and clutched tightly, his other hand in a fist and holding up his face as he rested his elbow on his other leg.

 

“Fancy meeting you here, old man.”

 

“Indeed. It’s good to see you, Judar. Have you grown since the last time?”

 

“You mean last week? No. Where the fuck are your clothes?”

 

“My---? Oh. They’re in my hat,” Yunan said without really thinking. Judar squinted at him, trying to discern lie from truth, but because of practice and the instant nature of the lie, he found nothing to tip him off. Shrugging, Judar tossed the hat into the air. Yunan reached for it. Just as he did, Judar made it explode with a wild grin.

 

Bits of hat fluttered down to the hardwood floor, the red gem hitting the ground with a _ting_ and rolling away. Yunan blinked.

 

“Was that necessary?”

 

“Nah. I just wanted to see your reaction, but you’re boring, so I’m going now.” And with that, the Kou Magi left.

 

Yunan found the gem, then used his alchemy to put the hat back together. After all, the material was still here. The green came back together, the stitching repaired itself, and the feathers reattached themselves. He set the gemstone back in its place, and, with his newly refurbished hat on his head, Yunan went back to bed.

 

“That took longer than I thought it would,” Koumei said once Yunan came back.

 

“Judar blew it up,” Yunan replied, tipping the hat before tossing it nonchalantly onto the rest of his clothes.

 

“I see.” Koumei eyed its unexploded state curiously. “Magic?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“What kind?”

 

“A special kind of my own making. Perhaps I’ll tell you, one day.”

 

“You don’t say much about yourself, but you ask questions of me.”

 

“And you answer. You know I’ll never say, nor do I have anyone I would want to tell. You also know that I know much that would be useful to your Empire. I have no wish to impart such information recklessly.”

 

“I understand. Good night, then,” Koumei said, turning around and snuggling into his blanket. Yunan did the same, reveling in the plushness of the blanket and the heat it offered. As there was no temperature fluctuation in the Great Rift, a simple blanket had sufficed, and Yunan hadn’t cared to make it overly comfy. This blanket was paradise.

 

“You have a cozy blanket,” Yunan muttered. He felt the bed shift next to him.

 

“Well, yes. You don’t have a blanket like this? I would have assumed that a Magi would allow himself many comforts.” Koumei could think of two Magi who would fall under that category: Scheherezade, who lived as High Priestess of the Reim Empire; and Judar, their own priest, who had two fluffy blankets, though the second often went missing.

 

It was expensive and irksome to replace them.

 

“I could have a blanket like this. I might get myself one, now that I’ve experienced this again. But the Great Rift’s quietness is all I want, really. Other comforts are trifles,” Yunan said. The words he had believed in were starting to sound hollow. He was wanting more than he had.

 

Stupid blanket.

 

Koumei hummed, then laid back down and went to sleep. Yunan said nothing, until he was sure the Prince was asleep. Then he tried to fall asleep himself. The bed was large, the blanket was airy, the room was wide and dark, but not oppressively dark, just coolly. Altogether, it was different from his home, different from the solitude he was used to, where a lit fireplace was the only light for miles, and a candle staved off a darkness that threatened to swallow him whole.

 

This place was comforting in a different way. Yunan breathed deeply, over and over again, relaxing himself and letting his consciousness go where it wished. As he drifted further and further into sleep, he was unaware of the slowly encroaching body next to him, until Koumei was snuggling into his side.

 

He had bathed recently, Yunan noted. Koumei’s hair smelled like peaches, most likely because of a peach-scented shampoo that the palace had. Either that, or Judar had hit him with a peach earlier. There was also no trace of grease in his skin. Yunan carefully stroked Koumei’s hair, making sure not to wake him. The Prince’s hair felt like a rabbit, one specific breed of rabbit that Yunan was fairly sure still lived somewhere. That breed of rabbit was ridiculously fluffy, and soft, and fun to cuddle if you didn’t scare them off…

 

Koumei’s hand found Yunan’s braid, grabbed on and pulled it close like a small child. His face was relaxed. The sight made Yunan smiled. It couldn’t be easy, acting as an adviser, general, and commander of an entire Empire. Even if his father was in charge and making the majority of the decisions, and his siblings did their share of the work, to do so much at such a young age was incredible to Yunan.

 

Yunan had had his share of adventures as a child and young adult, of course, but in comparison to actually ruling a country in any respect, choosing King’s Candidates and helping them grow as Kings was a cakewalk.

 

Now, if he could figure out how to keep them from killing him.

 

He breathed deeply again, dismissing such depressing thoughts from his head. Were he in the Great Rift, he could tune into someone’s conversation right now, and get enveloped in their drama. If he wanted, and pushed the boundaries, he could listen to Sindria. After all, though the Great Rift had its limitations due to location, he did have a vantage point of at least hearing news from Katarg. Sindria wasn’t _so_ far off.

 

 

 

Koumei awoke the next morning feeling rested. His pillow, however, felt odd. Yawning off the sleepiness, he opened his eyes to find himself against the chest ~~_bare chest_~~ of Yunan. The Magi was still asleep, mouth open, snoring softly and rhythmically.

 

His skin looked so soft. Koumei laid his cheek against Yunan’s chest again and confirmed that his skin was, indeed soft --- but was it still this soft on his face? Hands and feet could get rough, after all. Chu’un and the other guards and Household Vessels attested to that. Koumei reached a hand up to feel Yunan’s cheek.

 

It was _so soft._

 

Yunan stirred, his long, dark lashes fluttering as his eyebrows furrowed. Koumei’s hand retreated hastily. It came to rest on Yunan’s chest again, which was covered in a fine layer of hair, light and nearly invisible, unless you were at the right angle to the sun, when they were alight like fire.

 

Koumei wanted to shake his head, to shake the thoughts rising in his mind, but doing so would awaken Yunan and ruin his chance to observe the man from such a position. The more he knew, the better, so Koumei believed. He quelled the thoughts. He needed to think this through more.

 

Last time Yunan had arrived, hadn’t he said the Rukh guided him to Koumei? Or was it to the Kou Empire? It didn’t matter. Koumei felt as though the universe was yelling at him about something. He needed to focus on this, but Yunan was _so distracting._

 

For the first time in a long time, Koumei sent a prayer to Yuanshih Tientsun, the First Principle, an unending god of Taoism with no beginning or end. He believed, though he had only told his brother this, that this god was the Great White Flow itself. Surely, if Yunan had been guided here by the Rukh, it made sense to pray to them.

 

The answer to his prayer would come in time.

 

Yunan stirred again, his eyes opening to look down at Koumei, who was looking up at him. Blue eyes as deep as the ocean and red eyes as bright as the sun met with the gentleness of dawn on the sea. Yunan lifted himself from the bed, stretching and yawning. Koumei sat up as well. His hair puffed out like it always did in the morning, making him look like a demon, according to Kouha.

 

And Kougyoku.

 

And Judar.

 

...Kouen had once shown a touch of shock.

 

Koumei patted his hair down before he scared Yunan.

 

“Did you sleep well?” Yunan asked. Koumei looked over at him before he had his hair under control, and Yunan shrieked.

 

“Ah, sorry. My siblings don’t like waking me up because of this. The servants have gotten used to it, thankfully, and yes, I did sleep well last night. Did you?”

 

“I did. It was the best night of sleep I’ve had in a long time,” Yunan said, patting the soft mattress. He pulled the blanket up to his chin, reveling in its silkiness. Then, after calming down from the sight of Koumei’s eyes lit by the sun while bathed in shadow, Yunan noticed just how fluffy his hair really was.

 

 _Big fluffy bunny,_ Yunan thought. A knock at the door interrupted his memories of petting those rabbits --- as well as the growing want to pet Koumei the same way. Throwing himself out of bed and at his clothes, Yunan lifted everything into the air, hopping onto his staff to have some stability as he got dressed.

 

Koumei pouted at the sudden and abrupt departure from his bed, but sprawled out where Yunan was, gathering the blanket around him.

 

“Who is it?” he asked.

 

“It’s Kouha,” came a voice from the other side. Presumably, it was Kouha himself, but Yunan knew that sometimes servants would announce the presence of important people, instead.

 

Eight successful King’s Candidates will teach anyone a thing or two about the inner workings of the government-side working class.

 

“Come on in,” Koumei said. Yunan drifted along at the ceiling, as a short man with a blue hat and pink hair bounced into the room. Well, maybe _bounced_ wasn’t the right word. Stalked, or just moved somewhat frenetically.

 

“Mei-nii-san, I’m bored.”

 

“You’re full of energy this morning.”

 

“Yeah, that’s because I haven’t had the chance to do anything for awhile. You’re still getting things ready for my next diplomatic mission, and En-nii-san hasn’t needed the vanguard at all for the country he’s fighting right now. What am I supposed to do?” Kouha asked.

 

“Read? Here,” Koumei said, handing the scroll from last night to his brother. Kouha took it, looking at the scroll with dismay.

 

“… You’re too attached to books, Mei-nii-san. Get a girlfriend,” he said quietly. Yunan moved a little closer to hear better. Girlfriend? That didn’t sit well with him.

 

“No.” It didn’t sit well with Koumei, either.

 

“Suit yourself. I really think you’d be better off if you had a romantic someone in your life.”

 

“You’re full of ideas this morning, too,” Koumei said, glaring. Kouha put his hands up in surrender, leaving the scroll behind as he walked out of the room.

 

“I’m gonna be in the training yard if you need me today!”

 

“Don’t kill anyone.”

 

“I won’t!” Kouha opened the door, turning back. “And by the way. If you want to hide someone in your room, make sure you give them a bath so they smell like you. It’s easier to make them disappear that way.”

 

Koumei’s eyes went wide as his little brother left the room.

 

“Impetuous kid,” he muttered, smiling lovingly.

 

“My, he has a good nose, doesn’t he?” Yunan said, coming back down and leaving his hat on the bedside table.

 

“He does. I should’ve figured he would know someone was here.” Koumei rubbed the back of his head, brow furrowed in concentration. Yunan watched, climbing onto the bed.

 

“What will you do?”

 

“Kouha’s harmless. He knows better than anyone how to have a secret relationship. He doesn’t go through people for fun, but he does have a tendency to scare them off. I’m amazed he can get them past the trio.”

 

“The trio?”

 

“Junjun, Jinjin, and Rinrin, his three magician attendants. He found them as a child, gave them new hope and new life. They’ve been inseparable since, to the point that I have had to deescalate more than one situation borne of the four of them being at odds over something.”

 

“Amazing. Even as the… third prince?” Yunan looked at Koumei, who nodded. “He still has enough power over other people to cause incidents he can’t solve himself.”

 

“It’s more that he doesn’t want to. Most of those incidents revolved around the trio wanting him to have the ‘perfect wife’ and Kouha wanting to give someone a chance.”

 

“And what about you?”

 

“Huh?”

 

“Do you want a perfect wife?” Yunan asked.

 

“… not really. I’m content with my life as is. Besides, I’ve had plenty of women in my bed. I don’t know that I really want one to stay all night.”

 

“Did you not like me staying by you last night?” Yunan asked. Had he completely misread the situation? Koumei _had_ said he could stay in his room, right?

 

“That was different! You’re...” _Attractive. Kind. Fun to be around. A potential lover._ “… a good friend.” _Koumei, you idiot,_ Koumei thought angrily.

 

“A friend?” Yunan cocked his head, watching a blush spread across Koumei’s cheeks and leak into the rest of his face. Clearly this man wasn’t just thinking of Yunan as a friend. Even so, Yunan understood Koumei’s feelings, specifically the ones where he said nothing about how he was really feeling.

 

It reminded him of every encounter with Sinbad, of every moment where he almost came clean about himself, and what was going on in his lives. Some things couldn’t be shared until the right moment, if at all. Yunan thanked Solomon that Koumei’s worries were positive in nature.

 

“Anyway, you should be getting to the library, or the kitchens, or something. It’s your day off! Enjoy it!” Yunan said, patting Koumei on the back. He tossed his hat onto his head, boarding his staff and rising into the air.

 

“Can I spend it with you?” Koumei asked quietly.

 

“What?” Yunan leaned closer. He had missed that. The prince breathed in, then looked Yunan in the eye.

 

“I want to spend my day off with you. Would you be okay with that?” Yunan drifted to the floor, until he was sitting on it. He couldn’t stop looking into the blazing eyes of this man he had been led to, so filled with conviction were they.

 

Once, he might have loved someone with eyes like those. It was like that person was back…

 

“Sure. I’d be okay with it.” Yunan got off the floor, and held his hand out to Koumei, who took it eagerly, sliding off the mattress.

 

It was the first time in a long time Koumei had dressed himself, and quickly, at that. He didn’t want to lose a single, precious, moment.

**Author's Note:**

> finally posted this :D


End file.
